The Chinese Room
by ty.soglasna
Summary: hpdm slash. Absolute silliness. Featuring whiny!Harry, misinformed!Draco, a detention, a misapprehension, and a series of confrontations that may or may not have gone badly ... you get the idea ... caution: swearing
1. An Unwarranted Detention

gasp she writes slash!! Well, yes, all my other stories _are_ femslash, but this one was just begging to be Harry/Draco. So I wrote it. Enjoy.

**Disclaimers:** Harry, Draco, and the rest belong to JK Rowling. The Chinese Room thought experiment belongs to John Searle, and I'm not sure what he would think of me using it for such devious purposes as these…hehe. Direct quotes belong to Searle and Potter Puppet Pals. I do not claim credit for any of this! It's not mine!

**Warnings:** Swearing (rather severely), slash (more for later chapters than now), kissing (ditto), philosophy of mind jokes, violence (kinda), um…nothing that heinous...

1. An Unwarranted Detention

"Detention, Potter!"

Harry cringed inwardly at the potions master's oily tone of voice before he even registered the meaning of the words. How did that git manage to even _sound_ greasy? Had the grease from his hair somehow managed to percolate down through his head into his voice box? How long would it take for that to _happen?_ Harry's mind suddenly caught up with the outside world, as Snape's words sunk in.

"Wait, what? Detention? I didn't do anything!"

"Ex_cuse_ me?" Snape's voice had taken on a greasy variety of outrage, if that was even possible. Maybe he gargled with olive oil in the morning instead of mouthwash.

"I mean, I didn't do anything, _professor_. Why should I get detention?" amended Harry sullenly.

"I think your behavior in the last few minutes has more than merited a detention, Mr. Potter," drawled Snape.

"But I wasn't doing anything at all until you stalked over here and started provoking me!" Harry exclaimed, indignant.

"Precisely, Mr. Potter," said Snape. "Do feel free to dig yourself further into that nice little hole you're creating. I think you'll find that I am more than prepared to amend the severity of the detention accordingly."

"But – you – that's not fair!" spluttered Harry. Righteous indignation surged through his veins, somehow robbing him of coherence in the process.

"I see how it is," Snape continued, almost lazily. "Severe detention, then. You will be dragged by your ears to the dungeons, where a drunken Filch will be waiting for you with a cactus and a croquet mallet, and then – "

"No!!!" Harry exclaimed with more righteous indignation; which had apparently also robbed him of the ability to form multi-word sentences.

"Very well," said Snape, in a tone suggestive of grease frozen over, if that was even possible. Harry was pretty sure it was not possible, but was willing to bet his Firebolt that Snape could come up with a potion that would make it quite possible indeed.

"You will spend the evening…in the Chinese Room, Mr. Potter. Follow me." He turned and strode down the hall with an impressive billow of robes. Not that Harry was impressed, of course. It was just one of those things, that was objectively impressive, whether or not you yourself happened to be personally impressed by it…or something. Harry raked a hand through his hair and slouched after Snape, who was already rounding a corner farther down the corridor.

They reached what appeared to be their destination some minutes later. Snape strode through a heavy wooden door into a medium sized, dim, fire-lit room. Harry dutifully followed him inside, trying to convey the impression of one who does not want to be dragged by his ears down to the dungeon, and who would do any number of things to avoid said fate.

"If you would be so kind as to enter, Mr. Potter," drawled Snape, gesturing toward the open door at the end of the room. His voice had not thawed any; if anything it was icier. Crude oil was notoriously thick already; maybe it was capable of freezing up…

Harry peeked inside this next room, tentatively. It was a plain white room, no torture devices in sight…at least no cursed quills …

"IN, Potter!"

Harry scurried in rather rapidly. Now that he thought about it, there was that time that he had left Aunt Petunia's salad oil in the fridge, and it had gotten all sludgy and whitish before anyone had taken it out…Harry was pretty sure that still didn't count as actual freezing, though. He tried to decide whether Snape's voice had a whitish quality to it, at all.

Snape followed him into the room at a more leisurely pace, somehow making his robes billow again anyway. "Now, Potter, let me explain to you how this works, because you have repeatedly demonstrated that your intelligence is no higher than that of a trained pigeon…if that." Snape regarded him calculatingly through greasy, hooded eyes. "No, strike the trained part. In any case, you are in luck, Mr. Potter, because the possession of a brain is not necessary to complete this task."

"Well, what am I supposed to do?" demanded Harry belligerently. Then he remembered the dungeons and tried to play it off as eagerness to get on with the detention. The room they were in was bare except for a number of baskets, containing tiles, ranged about the edges of the room, and, lying on the floor, what was possibly the largest book Harry had ever seen. It looked like several full editions of the Encyclopedia Britannica bound together into one volume, along with some heavy bibles thrown in for effect.

Snape rolled his eyes. "I was about to explain, Mr. Potter, when you so rudely interrupted me. Now, as I was saying, this task is idiotically simple. A tray of characters will be passed into the room," he indicated a slot in the wall that Harry had not noticed before, "and you will look it up in the Lookup Book, and then arrange the appropriate characters on the outgoing tray, and pass it back through the slot." Harry looked toward the corner with the book and the basket, and noticed that there was indeed an outgoing tray, marked OUTGOING in block letters across the bottom.

"You will repeat the procedure for each incoming tray until I tell you to stop. Any questions?" challenged Snape, in a tone that brokered no argument. Nor questions, either, despite appearances to the contrary.

"No," said Harry, trying to avoid thoughts of cactuses shoved in inhospitable places. He was sure that Snape would carry out his original detention plan at the slightest provocation.

"Very well," drawled Snape, and he billowed out of the room again.

"But wait, Professor, how long am I –"

But Snape evidently did not hear Harry's cry, or more likely chose not to, for the last thing Harry heard before the door shut was an oily "Good evening Mr. Malfoy. Come right this way..." It was apparently possible for voice-grease to liquefy instantaneously, for there was nothing icy about Snape's voice now. Harry shuddered. Some things did not bear dwelling on.

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This was, without a doubt, the most boring time he'd ever had in detention. Seriously, carving words into your own flesh was no fun, but at least it was interesting. Something was _happening_, at least. So far, Harry had been in the Chinese Room for a grand total of thirty-seven minutes, and he was beginning to appreciate just how prisoners of Azkaban could go insane from boredom alone.

So far, one tray ­­­­­­­­­­of characters had been passed in through the slot. Harry had dutifully inspected it, found the entry in the book for the particular sequence of characters, followed the instructions for making up the outgoing tray, and passed it back out. The book must have been enchanted; otherwise there would have been no way to find the right entry in a human lifetime. Not that it made much difference, anyway; Harry could see no point in processing the trays of tiles. The tiles in the basket turned out to all have Chinese characters on them, as did the tiles that had been passed in on the tray. Harry considered trying to teach himself Chinese, just to kill the boredom – though if he ever got out of this, he would never, ever, let on to Hermione that he had considered doing something so near to studying voluntarily.

He quickly, and to his relief, found out that there was no possible way to teach oneself Chinese given the resources in the room. The Lookup Book had seemed a good place to start, but every entry was simply accompanied by nonsensical directions like "Take a squiggle-squiggle sign out of basket number 1 and put it next to a squoggle-squoggle sign from basket number 2."

Harry shook his head in disgust and slammed the book shut. Whoever had written this drivel had clearly been off his mind. He inspected the various tiles for a while, but soon gave up, unable to derive any meaning whatsoever from the cryptic characters.

His mind wandered. Why did Hogwarts even have a Chinese Room? What possible purpose could it serve? Was there also a Japanese Room, and an Arabic Room, and, and, a Basque Room, who knows what else? And why wouldn't Cho date him?? He supposed this last question had arisen by way of association…Chinese Room, Chinese hot girl, hot Chinese take-out…Harry's stomach growled. Damn trains of thought. His stomach growled again. What he wouldn't give for a nice carton of take-out right now…

He shook his head to distract himself from this entirely unproductive train of thought, and cast about for something else to distract himself with. There really was nothing in the room, except for the Lookup Book, the baskets, and the tiles. Then, struck by a brilliant idea, he leaped up and went over to the slot. Why hadn't he thought of this sooner? He lifted up the lid of the slot and set his eye to it. Barely had he caught a glimpse of the room beyond, when the lid smacked him soundly on the head, and squealed in a high-pitched, metallic voice, "Mind your own business!" When Harry was slow to move away, it smacked him again, much harder, and shrilled, "Get away, you floppy-wanded dementor buggerer!"

Harry jumped away in shock. He couldn't tell if it was being upbraided by a sentient wall-slot; the physical pain from being beaten about the head by the hard metal lid; or the scathing insult itself that had offended him more, but he certainly felt offended. He sat crouched in the opposite corner of the room, simultaneously nursing a bruised skull and trying to block out the high metallic voice of the slot, whose insults had not let up even now that he had moved away.

"Filthy-socked listener at other people's doors! You pile of rotting troll bogies! You drunken house elf! You –" The slot was fortunately shut up just then by a tray being shoved through it from the other side of the wall.

Harry warily crossed the room, and gingerly picked up the tray. The slot remained silent. Not believing that this was a permanent change, Harry took the tray over to the other side of the room and started flipping through the Lookup Book. Again, he quickly found the right entry (the characters on the tray looked like a crow's foot, then a pile of sticks, then a dense arrangement of lines that looked like nothing Harry had ever seen before, then a character which gave him the impression of an umbrella, for whatever reason…) Harry rolled his eyes. Tripe, nonsense, _why was he doing this???_ He dutifully picked the required tiles from their baskets, arranged them as instructed on the outgoing tray, and passed them back through the slot. He yanked his hand away as soon as the tray was through, but fortunately the slot seemed to be done shouting insults for now.

The tray came back almost immediately, with a different set of characters. At least, he thought they were different. Not that he could tell; they meant nothing at all to him. Flipping Chinese language, with its million unintelligible characters…

He was thus occupied for a good half hour, which dragged on interminably. Whoever was on the other side seemed to take a gleeful delight in passing back the tray as fast as possible, and each time with a longer string of characters than the last time. Really, there was no way this could be warranted. Harry sighed heavily and plodded on with the work. Take tray, look up the meaningless jumble, put characters together, pass them back out, take tray, look up… Dull, dull, dull, dull. Dulldulldull.

There was at length a lag in the incoming trays, so Harry tried to amuse himself by seeing how many of the tiles he could stack on top of each other until they fell down. When they did fall down, as was inevitable, the slot started insulting him again, so he amused himself further by chucking tiles at it. He congratulated himself on managing to get a few through the slot when it opened its lid to speak. This, unfortunately, had no effect at all on its stream of insults.

Another incoming tray was pushed through, interrupting Harry's brief and questionably amusing break. Harry regarded it apathetically from his end of the room. Why should he even bother to process these? Was there a _need?_ Harry could see no purpose at all, personally; this was an even worse detention than the time he had to sort rotten flobberworms from good ones for Snape. Well, maybe not worse, but at least there was a point to sorting flobberworms; you didn't want them all to go bad. Although that point was kind of lost if you just mixed them all together in the first place, as Harry suspected Snape had done. Greasy git.

Another tray slid in, this time containing even more tiles. Where on earth had another tray come from? There were now three in the Chinese Room with Harry. He stuck his tongue out at it, and waited to see if any others would arrive. Another did, not surprisingly, and Harry found himself imagining the room outside stacked high with empty trays. Oh, and tiles. Maybe if whoever it was kept passing them in, he would eventually be suffocated in a giant, towering pile of trays that would fill the room…He let out a heavy sigh and slouched lower down the wall he was leaning on. This detention could not end soon enough.

Just then, the door to the room opened, and before he could react, Harry was being pressed up against the wall and snogged quite thoroughly. He was having trouble breathing, since the other person's mouth was in the way, although that wasn't necessarily a bad thing…if it wasn't for the whole needing-breath-to-sustain-cellular-respiration-and-therefore-life thing, Harry might have been perfectly content to let them keep at it.

Then he realized that he had closed his eyes at some point, probably out of self-defense when he saw a large form rushing toward him at top speed, and thus had no idea who was snogging him. _Creepy._ Maybe it was Cho…He lost his train of thought for a moment, being quite actively distracted by whoever it was. Then he felt a tongue against his lips, proverbially begging for entrance, and his eyes shot open.

Now he could see the person who was kissing him so enthusiastically, and – WHAT?? His fist shot out and punched his – assailant – very hard in the face before his brain even had time to process the visual information, and he would also have jumped back a good ten feet, but the wall at his back prevented him from following this particular prudent course of action.

"MALFOY??" Harry paused to vigorously wipe his mouth off with his sleeve, and then did it again for good measure. For his part, Malfoy was still sitting on the floor where he had fallen, and was clutching the region of his left eye rather pathetically.

"WHAT…THE _FUCK_…WAS _THAT_??" Harry found that he was still shouting at the top of his voice, and then decided that it was absolutely warranted, given the situation.

"I should be asking you the same thing," Malfoy said, standing up. How he managed to look mortally offended, pitifully injured, and pompous, all at the same time, was beyond Harry. The bastard.

"What do you mean, you should be – You know what, I don't even want to know. Save your pitiful explanations, Malfoy, I – GAH!" Malfoy had taken a step toward Harry, with a positively alarming look in his eye, and Harry had stumbled backward and tripped on a pile of tiles. Harry scrambled to his feet and ran out of the door, hurling some choice imprecations after him as he fled – no; as he escaped manfully. He slammed the door behind him and was gratified to feel that the knob did not turn when he tried it; and then he made directly for the Gryffindor dormitories, not caring what Snape may have to say about finishing his detention. This was an emergency situation.

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	2. Revenge Must Be Had

2. Revenge Must Be Had

Harry made it back up to his dormitory in record time, especially considering that he had been in an unfamiliar part of the castle to begin with. He threw himself onto his bed moodily, and spent several long minutes with his face buried in his pillow, catching his breath.

Or not. It was actually pretty hard to breathe that way, but whatever, he was calming himself down. It didn't end up working, though, because when he got up from his pillow he was still far from calm. He took the ineffective pillow and threw it across the room, as hard as he could. Bloody Malfoy. What was he playing at, assaulting innocent people in that…fashion??

Harry picked up his dirty Quidditch robes and flung them too, feeling a welcome sense of release as he did so. Stupid, evil, ferret-faced git, had no business going and snogging people like – Well, it didn't bear thinking what it was like. Harry attempted to banish this particular train of though by throwing another piece of dirty laundry across the room, and succeeded.

Ten minutes later, Harry, still flinging his possessions around the room and grunting incoherent curses against Draco Malfoy and all his ancestors, was interrupted by Ron coming in the room. Ron took a few moments to appreciate the devastated state of their dorm, and then addressed Harry.

"Something bothering you, mate? We could hear you all the way down in the common room, sounded like someone had let a giant loose up here."

Harry sagged down onto his bed and buried his head in his hands. How had this evening gone so wrong, so quickly? It was all Snape's fault, the evil, greasy, conniving bastard. He related as much to Ron, who agreed with him wholeheartedly, despite still not knowing _what_ was Snape's fault.

Harry told him what had happened anyway, needing someone else to share his outrage at the gross injustice that had been his evening. Starting with Snape's impromptu detention ("And I was just sitting in the library, right, minding my own business, and he comes up and gives me a detention _for no reason at all_!"), to the horrendous, unconscionable boredom that had been the detention ("I mean, it might have been at least_ bearable_ if I had known Chinese or something…"), to the heinous assault on his person by none other than Draco Malfoy ("…and you know who it was? Malfoy!! Aarrrgh, I'll be scarred for life now! I will!")

Ron looked appropriately enraged by the end of this narrative, (or at least Harry thought he was enraged, if the redness of his face was any indication), and they spent the next twenty minutes cursing Malfoy inventively, at the top of their voices. By the time they ran out of insults to use, the actual nature of Malfoy's offense had faded from memory, and they began plotting ways to get back at him. Whatever exactly he had done, it obviously required revenge.

"I think we should punch his face in," said Ron ominously, punching his own hand restlessly. Maybe that was what had given him the idea in the first place.

"I already did that, remember?" said Harry morosely. Although it had been very satisfying to punch that ferrety git in his pointy, ferrety face…

"Yeah, no reason we can't do it again, right?"

"Yeah…" said Harry. He liked the way Ron thought; he must have gotten his good problem-solving skills from all that chess-playing he did. "Yeah, we should do that! We have double Potions tomorrow, we could just hang back and corner him afterwards…"

Ron looked physically pained. "No, that wouldn't work. Sorry mate, but there's Quidditch practice tomorrow, remember?"

"_So?_" Harry did not like this obstruction to his revenge; he would have gone and beaten Malfoy up that moment if he could. Then he would be able to finally stop thinking about all this.

"So, we might be late to practice!" Quidditch was obviously far more important to Ron than Harry's feelings.

Harry let out a long-suffering sigh. "Ron, _I'm_ the captain of the Quidditch team, remember? I wouldn't get you in trouble if you were late because of helping _me!_"

Ron still looked pained. "Yeah, but, it's Quidditch…"

"Yeah, but Ron, this is _Malfoy_!" Harry really didn't need to have an argument with his best friend right now, on top of everything else. Why couldn't he see how important this was to him?

Ron now looked abashed as well as pained. "I know, Harry, and I hate Malfoy just as much as you do –" _No you don't! _" – and I'm not saying we should never get him back, because he obviously deserves what's coming to him; I'm just saying that tomorrow afternoon is a bad time. Maybe after Care of Magical Creatures, instead?"

Their next Care of Magical Creatures class was two days away, but on the plus side it was right before lunch time, so no one would notice if they hung back afterwards, and they had it with the Slytherins. Harry grudgingly admitted that it would be an acceptable time to exact his revenge. Ron brightened up noticeably, and even offered to help Harry clean up the mess he had made in their dorm.

They were just finishing when their other dorm mates walked in, and Seamus pointed out helpfully that they could have just used the packing charm to clean up most of it, instead of doing it by hand. Harry wished he could just use a packing charm on his dorm mates, and make them go away so he could brood in peace. Eventually the dorm quieted down as they all fell asleep, and a little later Harry fell asleep himself, contemplating satisfying images involving his fist and Malfoy's face in dangerous proximity.

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The days leading up to the fateful Care of Magical Creatures class had passed far too slowly for Harry. After their double Potions class he had been itching to lay into Malfoy right then and there, but Ron had pulled him away forcibly by the arm, instead of backing him up like a real friend would, whining on about how Harry was going to make them late for Quidditch if he didn't get control of himself, and didn't he remember about their plan for tomorrow anyway?

Ron couldn't possibly understand, though; _he_ hadn't been the one that Malfoy had been smiling at so sinisterly all through potions class. Harry had been spending most of his time trying to look as inconspicuous as possible, so that Snape wouldn't notice him and bring up the subject of his deserted detention – he miraculously hadn't done so yet, and Harry felt that if he could just get through this one class safely, he'd be out of danger for good.

Malfoy had insisted upon turning around and flashing that smile in Harry's direction every time Snape has his back to the class, though, putting Harry's plan in serious jeopardy. Harry had glared threateningly back at Malfoy every time, hoping to convey clearly, through his eyes alone, the message "Stop turning around and looking at me like that, you sodding poncy bastard," as well as "Just wait until tomorrow afternoon, you ferret-faced menace to humanity," and also "When I'm through with you, Madam Pomfrey won't be able to tell you apart from something a dragon spat out." His success was apparently limited, however, for Malfoy seemed immune to being glared at, and Ron had pulled Harry away after class before he had had a chance to try getting the message across more…_concretely._

Harry dismissed the team early from Quidditch practice, finding himself unable to really concentrate on tactics. It wasn't like the team needed to train up that hard anyway; their next match was only against Hufflepuff. Harry didn't object, however, when Ron and the chasers decided to stay on for some extra goal-keeping exercises, it was their business if they felt like spending their time that way. It wasn't his fault if certain people could think of nothing but Quidditch.

Ron still hadn't returned by the time Harry had eaten dinner and gone up to the common room, but Harry didn't think much of it. It wasn't unlike Ron to stay out on the Quidditch pitch through meal time and then go badger the house elves for food when he got back.

Harry did think it a bit odd when Ron wasn't in the dormitory when he went up to go to bed, but then again it was still early. Harry had been unable to focus on his homework, and had decided to take an early night, despite Hermione's strident protestations of "But Harry, how can you even _think _of going to bed without your homework done! When _do_ you plan on doing it??"

Harry found that thinking of going to bed was quite possible, regardless of one's homework status. And it was much preferable to thinking about _that smile_, which was all he had been able to think about since he had opened his Potions text three hours earlier. Harry wondered how an expression that had seemed so sinister at the time could seem so appealing in retrospect.

Eurgh, not _appealing_ – had he really just thought that? What was the word for something your mind kept going back to and dwelling on, ad infinitum, without your permission…? Certainly not 'appealing', of that he was sure, but he had a hard time thinking of what it the right word was, otherwise. 'Attractive?' No, no that was _far_ worse… The essay for Snape could wait; all Harry wanted right now was to escape.

Sleep sadly offered him no relief; he was plagued by dreams that made no sense and left him feeling vaguely disturbed.

Cho was locked in the Chinese Room and he needed to rescue her, but Snape was holding him up demanding to know why he hadn't completed his detention. Then Hermione appeared and told Snape to finish his essay, _quickly_, before he ran out of time, and Harry escaped and went to rescue Cho. When he arrived, he transformed the Chinese Room into the Quidditch pitch, thus freeing Cho, who flashed him a strangely familiar heart-stopping smile of gratitude before she jumped on her broom and shot off in pursuit of the snitch.

The next thing he knew, he was on his own broom soaring after her, but the crowd was inexplicably booing Gryffindor. The sound became louder and louder, and was accompanied by a growing feeling of dread when he looked over to see that Ron was nowhere to be seen, leaving the Gryffindor goals completely open. His sense of dread became overwhelming when he realized that his team was performing atrociously, and it was all his fault for not training them enough, and the Hufflepuffs would win the House Cup, and all the Gryffindors would be expelled, and he would be sent to Azkaban…the roar of the crowd became deafening and the pitch dissolved.

The next thing Harry knew, he was back in an earlier part of the dream again, rushing to rescue Cho for the second time. Only this time he was fixed on doing it the _right_ way, and when he burst into the Chinese Room for the second time, he refrained from transforming it into anything.

Instead, he transformed Cho into Draco Malfoy, which seemed, to dream-Harry, to be a perfectly logical way to rescue somebody. And then it seemed perfectly logical when Harry found Draco backing him against the wall of the room, kissing him furiously. Well, how _else_ was he supposed to express his gratitude for being rescued?

Later, Harry couldn't remember at what point Cho-in-the-shape-of-Malfoy had turned into Malfoy himself, but in the dream it had been perfectly clear. Then Hermione appeared again and was pulling them apart, saying it was forbidden to snog in the hallways, and Harry was protesting this development vociferously, resenting the unjust interruption –

It was at this point that Harry woke up, sweating and feeling distinctly unsatisfied, as though he had been cheated out of something very good. Then the contents of his dream came rushing back to him, and he swore fervently under his breath. Why did he have to have a dream like that about _Malfoy_, of all people? Eeeew!

He hastily chalked it up to overactive hormones – this must be what people were talking about, when they said "raging hormones" and shook their heads knowingly. No wonder they always talked about it as if it was a bad thing, if it could make your own mind betray you while you slept…Harry didn't trust himself to go back to sleep; there was no telling what disturbing images awaited him there. He cast a light charm inside his closed bed drapes, and proceeded to do the pile of homework that he hadn't finished last night. Luckily, the work was difficult enough to keep his mind off most everything else, and given the alternative, he had no trouble making himself concentrate on the dull homework.

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When breakfast and the first two classes of the day had passed and still Ron had not reappeared, Harry began to feel real concern. At the risk of being late for Care of Magical Creatures, he cornered Professor McGonagall after Transfigurations and informed her that his dorm mate had been missing since last night, and that maybe they should start sending out search parties to comb the Forbidden Forest for his body.

She informed him brusquely that no such measures would be necessary, as Ron was at the moment safe in the hospital wing, and had been since dinner time yesterday.

Harry expressed his outrage at not being informed earlier, and demanded to know what was the matter with his friend. Ron might be dying, for all he knew, and no one had seen fit to let Harry, his best mate, know about it. Also, who was supposed to help beat up Malfoy if Ron was trapped in the hospital wing? Harry forbore from sharing this last concern with his head of house, however, knowing that missions of revenge (however warranted!) were generally frowned upon by the administration.

McGonagall sighed heavily and reminded him that he would be late to his next class if he dawdled any longer, but consented to tell him that "Mr. Weasley was injured playing Quidditch," and that he would be in the hospital wing for some time yet, as "the bones of the hand are numerous and delicate, and take time to grow back properly," from which Harry gathered that Ron had tried to catch an incoming Bludger bare-handed again, and had broken most of the bones in his hand as the result.

Harry wasn't surprised; the last time Ron had done that, his thumb, first two fingers, and at least half of his palm had been reduced to the consistency of coarse gravel, and Mrs. Weasley had had to take him to St. Mungo's. But you'd think he'd_ learn_. There was a reason that there were beaters on a Quidditch team, and a reason why they used _bats_.

Harry thanked the Transfigurations professor for the information, and trudged off across the grounds with a heavy heart. It wasn't because of Ron's condition – Madam Pomfrey was excellent at sorting out this kind of thing – but that now he would have to face Malfoy and his goons alone, and would probably lose miserably, and end up in the hospital wing himself. At least he would have company there.

The option of simply not confronting Malfoy did not occur to Harry; he would have been more likely to spontaneously learn Calculus in the time it took to walk over to Hagrid's hut.

Even though he had hurried, Harry still managed to arrive late to Care of Magical Creatures, and everyone was already paired off, working. If he had come straight after Transfigurations, like the rest of the Gryffindors, then he could have just gone unnoticed among the rest of his classmates, but now he was arriving alone and a big fuss would be made over him. He hated it when this happened. Heads turned to see who was late, and then turned back to their work, a low murmur spreading through the class. Malfoy looked up and flashed Harry another one of those sly, maddening smiles, which Harry resolutely ignored.

He made his way over to Hagrid, and explained his situation in a low voice, and apologized for being late. Hagrid, not taking the hint, responded in his normal speaking voice, which had to be several decibels louder than a normal person's.

"S' no problem, Harry! Jus' glad you could make it at all!"

"What are we doing today?" asked Harry in a still lower voice, looking around.

Hagrid, still not taking the hint, said in a far-louder-than-necessary voice something about "De-Chizpurfling the Auguries," and that Harry would need a partner. Several heads turned toward Harry again, and a few Slytherins sniggered. Harry ignored them. He hadn't known that Hogwarts had an Augury flock, but apparently they did, for between each pair of students was a large bedraggled-looking raptor-like bird, and there were a few more lingering around in the paddock next to Hagrid's hut.

Hagrid eventually figured out that everyone was already working in groups of two except for Malfoy, Crabbe, and Goyle, who had formed a group of three of their own accord. Hagrid jovially paired Harry with Crabbe and went off to get them their own Augury from the paddock. Harry would have picked a spot as far away from Malfoy and Goyle as was possible, but Crabbe seemed reluctant to be separated from the other two-thirds of his gang, so they ended up midway between the Gryffindors and the Slytherins, who had stayed in separate groups as usual. Harry was surprised that Malfoy had even let the other Slytherin leave his side at all; usually the blond was never seen apart from his troll-faced goons in public.

Harry gathered from watching the other students that they were supposed to be applying potion to the bird's plumage, presumably to de-Chizpurfle it, but he had little mind for the task. He tried to size up Crabbe inconspicuously while he had the chance, and felt a sinking feeling in his stomach. No, he had not remembered incorrectly from the other thousand times he had seen Crabbe and Goyle terrorizing unfortunate first years – they really were as big and hill-like as Harry remembered, and as unlikely to be beaten in a fight.

He doubted he even had a chance against one of them, much less the two together. And of course he would never get the chance to get at Malfoy himself, which was, after all, the point of the whole thing. Maybe if he asked Malfoy for a private word, after class…No, that was a stupid idea. Malfoy's idea of a private word doubtless included Crabbe and Goyle standing by to intervene if the conversation didn't go the way he liked, and Harry didn't really want to be intervened on.

Crabbe proved worthless as a partner, and Harry relegated him to holding down the Augury while Harry tried to apply the potion. There was the off chance that it might struggle enough to tire out Crabbe's arms, giving Harry a better chance at getting through to Malfoy, and backing him into a tree, and – and punching him in the face, really hard. Damn hormones. Harry individually cursed every endocrine gland in his body that he could think of, which wasn't many, but it did make him feel a bit better.

_Of course_ it wasn't his fault that he had dreamed about Malfoy, and it definitely wasn't his fault that he had enjoyed it far better than the dreams he had where Cho stayed Cho. It was just…well, inconvenient. And embarrassing. But he wasn't planning on telling anyone about it anytime soon, so that didn't matter.

Eventually, it was the end of class, and Harry hung back, still determined to execute the plan even if Ron wasn't there to help him out. He waved to Hermione, gesturing that she should continue up to the castle and that he would meet her there later (or something along those lines). Hopefully she would think he just wanted to talk with Hagrid.

Luckily, Malfoy was taking his time as usual, and he and his bodyguards were walking well behind the group headed up to the castle. Harry followed behind the three Slytherins, waiting till the rest of the students were well out of earshot, and then made his move.

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A/N: Sorry if the dream sequence was a bit confusing, but that's what _my_ dreams are usually like, anyway. Confusing, I mean. And totally nonsensical, but it all makes perfect sense within the dream...

Thanks for your reviews so far!


	3. A Slight Setback

A/N: A few people asked about it, so I just want to clear something up: Harry is not in denial about being gay; he's far to mature and worldly for something as trifling like sexual orientation to bother him. If asked, he would probably say something like he was attracted to individual people, not their genders. (And this is totally plausible, ok? Because that's how everyone would think if I ruled the world, and I am the author, so what I say goes. And this isn't a serious story anyway.) He's just in denial about _who_ he happens to be attracted to - after all, Draco is a total bastard and his sworn enemy, right? Right. On with the story...

3. A Slight Setback

"Malfoy, can I have a private word?" Oh shit. Had he really just gone with _that_ plan? The one that he had just rejected for very good reasons, not half an hour ago? Maybe he should have spent more time thinking up an viable alternate plan, after rejecting this one…

Malfoy gave Harry a calculating look that made him squirm, internally – he must have been sharing notes with Snape about Uncomfortable Looks – and then, to Harry's surprise, nodded.

"Why not?" he said casually, and then, to Harry's greater surprise, gestured for Crabbe and Goyle to continue on without him.

Harry was very happy to see the two hulking Slytherins go, but was more nervous than ever now that he had managed to get Malfoy alone. All of a sudden he realized that all his plans had only ever taken him this far - to the point where he got Malfoy alone - and then they skipped to the part where Malfoy was in the hospital wing and Harry was feeling smug and satisfied, and however else one was supposed to feel after one has successfully gotten one's revenge for heinous wrongs committed against oneself.

Malfoy walked a little way off the path, and Harry followed. Malfoy came to a stop after walking about twenty feet, and leaned against a tree and folded his arms casually across his chest, regarding Harry coolly.

"So, Potter, what was it that you needed to speak to me so _privately_ about?"

Harry felt unreasonably like he was the one who had to answer for his actions, which did nothing at all to help his nerves. Malfoy's tone of voice did nothing to help either; it was something that might have been called seductive, in some other setting. Harry reminded himself that he, Harry, was the wronged party, and Malfoy was the one who started this in the first place.

Or had he? Maybe he had mistaken Harry for someone else? Yeah, right ... that was the least plausible thing Harry had thought of yet, but still, it couldn't hurt to make sure, could it?

"I –" Harry wished he had planned out what to say beforehand. "You _know_ what I want to talk about, Malfoy!"

Malfoy's grin became wider and more cat-like, which was not the effect Harry had planned on having. Nevertheless, he was determined to get answers from the infuriating Slytherin. Then he would decide whether to beat him up or not…maybe he wouldn't have to; maybe it had just been a misunderstanding in the first place? Harry chastised himself; of course this was all Malfoy's fault. Why couldn't he think straight when the git was smiling at him like that?

Harry forged on, like the brave Gryffindor he was. "I mean, what right do you have to just go up and –" he forced himself to say it "- just _snog_ people, against their will like that?" He felt his temper rising again as he recalled the events of that night. How he would love to just grab Malfoy by the front of his robes, and just – um, smash him against the tree. Yeah, that was it.

Malfoy detached himself from the tree and leaned into Harry's personal space, interrupting his train of thought quite effectively. "Oh, I would never do anything to you against your will, Harry," he said. He was close enough that Harry could see tiny flecks of lighter gold in his gray eyes that he would never have suspected were there. He tried to ignore the other boy's eyes and concentrate on the issues at hand, but it was hard.

"But, you –" protested Harry. He closed his eyes and found that this greatly increased his ability to speak coherently. "But what on earth gave you the idea that I wanted you to do that??" Harry's question came out rather more shrilly than he had intended. _Now would be a good time to punch him in the face_, commented one part of Harry idly; it was probably the part that was concerned with finishing up with this nonsense and getting to lunch in time to eat. He ignored it.

Malfoy leaned closer yet; Harry still had his eyes closed but at this range he could feel the increase of body heat. "_You _did," he breathed – his voice was _definitely _seductive now, which should concern Harry far more than it did – and he leaned closer still, so that Harry wouldn't have been able to move forward without touching him, and drew his thumb possessively along Harry's cheek. "See you in Potions," he said, so close that Harry could feel his breath against his face, and then, just as fast, he was gone.

Harry opened his eyes after a few moments to see him strolling purposely up to the castle, and started up in the same direction a few moments later, after trying and failing to collect himself. He was more confused now than ever.

What had Malfoy meant, when he said that Harry had told him he wanted this…_attention_? At the moment, Harry himself couldn't decide whether he liked it or not, but that was beside the point. He had certainly never told Malfoy any such thing, and that was the important thing. Maybe this was just one of his Slytherin mind games? Certainly a possibility, but Harry had seen Malfoy lying enough times to know what that looked like - and it didn't look like this. Come to think of it, Harry never had seen Malfoy act quite like this.

Harry reached the Great Hall with the vague idea of finding Hermione and talking to her; surely she would be able to figure out what was going on here even if he couldn't.

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As soon as Draco reached the castle, he dropped his casual saunter and hurried off in the direction of the dungeons. It would be no great sacrifice to skip lunch today – he had already missed more than half of it anyway – and he needed to talk to the Potions master rather urgently. Things were not going as expected, and he needed answers.

Snape opened the door to his office at Draco's first knock. He didn't look too pleased to be inturrupted; Draco knew that he never went to lunch in the Great Hall because he valued the time alone, but this was an emergency.

"And what seems to be the problem this time?" Snape asked, turning with an impressive billow of robes and sitting down at his desk again. Draco took the more comfortable of the two chairs in front of the desk, and got straight to the point without preamble. The Potions master disliked when people beat around the bush, preferring a point to be expressed directly, or not at all. Draco had learned this at a very young age, and had since used it to his advantage.

"Harry Potter pulled me aside after class today; he seems to think that I've taken advantage of him against his will."

Snape quirked one eyebrow, but still managed to look bored.

Draco continued. "Which is absolutely false, of course, he said –"

Snape interrupted him. "Did he say this in person, or in communication through the Chinese Room?" He now sounded bored _and_ annoyed, and Draco vowed to keep this visit as short as possible.

"Through the Chinese Room, sir."

"Right. And do you remember what was said?"

Of course Draco remembered; it had been one of the defining moments of his life. "Well, at first it was just small talk; I asked to make sure it was really him, and told him who I was, and we just chatted back and forth for a little while –" Snape curled his lip but let Draco continue; the other thing he hated was small talk and chatting. Well, there were many things he hated, but these were definitely up there in the top ten.

"He told me to call him Harry, which surprised me, given the nature of our past interactions –" Snape snorted.

"Which made me think he wouldn't be entirely averse to my further advances, so then I said that there was something I had been wanting to do for a while, and would he mind if I came in? And he said that yes, that was fine; but then I asked him if it was alright again, just to make sure – I admit that I didn't quite believe him the first time, given his well-publicized longtime hatred of me – and he didn't answer for a long time. So then I sent in another question, saying that I understood if he was having second thoughts, and if he didn't want me to come in he should send out an answer saying "stay out" or something, but that he didn't have to do anything if he stood by his original answer. I waited a while, and he didn't send anything else out, so I went in and –"

Snape did interrupt this time. "I do not care to hear what, in particular, you did under Mr. Potter's supposed consent. I'm sure the very idea of you two together will give me nightmares for days; there is no need to prolong that number to that of weeks by providing the sordid details."

Draco wondered what had gotten Snape in such a bad mood; usually he saved most of his surliness for the Gryffindors' benefit. The details were hardly even sordid, either – all he had done was go in and kiss Harry, and not even for that long.

"Far be it from me to want to cause you discomfort, sir," said Draco deferentially; after all, he did need to get another favor out of Snape. "Anyway, in the end, he punched me and ran out of the room in a most undignified manner, and when he confronted me about it today, he claimed that I had molested him against his will."

The look in Snape's eye was triumphant, making Draco sincerely doubt whose side he was on in this. "Tell me, Draco, does Mr. Potter speak Chinese?"

Draco highly doubted it, and said as much. He, of course, had studied Chinese since he was six, along with Latin, Sanskrit, and French (Narcissa's idea; something to do with Continental parties when he was older); but he doubted that Harry's early education would have included such refinements.

"But you said there was a lookup book in the room, right? He could have just used that. Anyway, he was certainly replying to my questions like someone who understood Chinese; I hardly see how it could matter whether or not he speaks the language."

Snape's smile grew darker. "Ah yes, the Lookup Book. It is indeed there, but I doubt that would have helped Mr. Potter gain the slightest grasp of the meaning of your questions. It contains nothing more than a set of purely mechanical instructions for processing incoming and outgoing tiles. Even a trained animal could follow them, and be expected to produce seemingly intelligent responses – indistinguishable from those of a native Chinese speaker, if I remember the specifications correctly. Potter had no more idea of what you were asking than of what he was saying back; in fact, I doubt Potter even knew that he was holding a conversation."

Draco felt his stomach fall, but schooled his features into a look of cool indifference. "I see. I suppose this means I will have to start over. At least now I know why he's been acting the way he has for the past few days." He opened his mouth to phrase his next request, but Snape anticipated his move.

"Do not waste your breath asking for more of my help on this doomed project; for I assure you my answer will be no. I already agreed to help you once, against my better judgment, and at great personal inconvenience, and I do not intend to do it again." _The great liar. _ Draco knew that Snape loved finding excuses to put Harry in detention, and that was exactly what Draco had given him. Snape was still talking, however.

"I arranged a situation where you could communicate with Potter anonymously, exactly as you specified –" _except for the small point that Harry hadn't been able to understand anything Draco was saying _"- and even went so far as to allow you to be out of your dormitory after curfew, but this is as far as I will go. You will find that I do not owe your family another favor, and I am certainly not about to help you further this - boyish crush - of yours any more" Draco bristled to hear his feelings labeled in such a crass, common way, but kept up his mask of indifference.

"Now, if you would be so kind as to leave my office at once; I have important work to finish before my next class, which is in twenty minutes. Good day, Draco."

Draco got up and grudgingly thanked the Potions master for his time, and left the office to go skulk around forbiddingly in the dungeon halls before his next class. _Some_ of his godfather's habits were worthy of imitation, at any rate, even if they differed diametrically in their opinion of Harry Potter.

Well, Draco had certainly made a mess of this one. Not only had he failed to enquire after the particulars of the communication arrangement, but he had used up the favor that Snape owed his mother, and now no longer had the man in his debt.

It should have occurred to Draco that Snape would never have been so willing to go along with Draco's plan if it didn't end up hurting Harry in some way, but at the time he had been too happy to have a solution to his problem to question it much. He was sure he would think of a solution eventually, but this had been a considerable setback.

Looking back on the day's events so far, he wasn't entirely displeased, in retrospect. Vince had reported that Harry had looked his way thirteen times during class; and he was never quite sure how high Vince could count, so it may well have been more. And Harry had not pushed him away during their talk by the tree, which was what Draco had half-expected him to do.

Draco thought he was learning how to handle Harry quite well, actually; if he was careful then there should be no more mishaps. Humming contentedly under his breath, Draco headed up the stairs to his next class, already thinking of what he would do when he next saw Harry.

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A/N: So yeah, it turns out that I actually skipped a whole chunk of the story when I was counting chapters, and so this is not the last chapter, or second-to-last, or whatever I said it was. Moral of story: never, ever listen to me when I say how many chapters are left! I assure you, though, that I spoke with absolute accuracy when I said it was all the way written. So the daily updates will continue...just for a bit longer than I thought?

Did you know that I really like reviews? And concrit is my best friend; so should you have anything critical to share...do not hesitate!


	4. Hermione Knows

4. Hermione Knows

Later that evening, Harry finally found Hermione.

She was in the hospital wing, of all places, where he went after dinner to go visit Ron. She was trying, in an increasingly loud voice, to get Ron to stop playing with his healing hand. Harry cringed inwardly; he could hear what she was saying all the way from the other end of the wing.

"Ronald Weasley, stop that this instant! Madam Pomfrey said that it won't heal unless you leave it alone; do you _want_ to spend another day in here?"

The bones of Ron's hand had apparently not hardened all the way yet, and he was amusing himself greatly by testing the limits of the new flexibility of his appendage. Ron just grinned wickedly and bent his hand back further so that it touched his arm, and then let go so that it sprung back with and odd _thwack_.

"But look what it can_ do_; isn't that brilliant? I should tell Fred and George about this stuff, they'd love it…" Privately, Harry didn't blame Ron for wanting to miss another day of classes, but he knew better than to get between the two of them when they got into an argument.

"Hi Ron, Hermione," he said, coming up to the bed.

The pair of them looked around toward Harry in mild surprise, having been too wrapped up in their argument to notice his approach.

"Sorry for not coming to see you earlier, mate; no one even told me you were in here until this afternoon," he said to Ron.

"Oh, don't worry about it; I'm fine. Mum owled me some stuff last night so I wouldn't get bored –" here he gestured toward a precipitous pile of sweets and Quidditch magazines on the table next to his bed "- and Madam Pomfrey said that it'll heal as good as new, it just takes time. Doesn't even hurt anymore," he said, making an anatomically impossible hand gesture to prove his point. Well, anatomically impossible for anyone possessing bones of the regular rigidity, that is.

"Great, glad to hear it…" said Harry, but now that he had found Hermione, his mind was already turning toward more serious matters – like the current Malfoy Situation, for one. Malfoy had resumed his incomprehensible habit of smiling every time he saw Harry, even though they hadn't had any more classes together that day. Harry was getting more and more unsettled - what was he_ up_ to? Harry was sure he was up to something sinister.

He tapped Hermione on the shoulder, and she turned around, still glaring crossly. "Hermione, can I have a private word?" That phrase certainly seemed to be getting a lot of use today. "If you're not busy, I mean." She let out an artfully heavy sigh and shot Ron a death glare.

"Sure; I was just leaving here anyway, because clearly nothing I say makes any difference. Let's go." She turned briskly and headed toward the exit without looking back.

"Hope you get better soon, Ron," said Harry, winking. Ron grinned back and flapped his hand around in Harry's general direction. "I'll come by and visit you sometime tomorrow, ok?" said Harry, who had more realistic expectations of the length of Ron's hospital stay. Ron nodded agreeably and turned back to the Quidditch magazine lying open across his lap, and Harry hurried to follow Hermione out of the wing.

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"So, suppose you were a bloke, Hermione," said Harry seriously, once they had reached the Gryffindor common room and ensconced themselves in a couch near the fire.

"Okay, go on," said Hermione, looking more than happy to be taking part in a conversation that did not start off with something along the lines of "Would you mind checking my Transfigurations homework before I turn it in?"

"Right, and you get snogged by this other bloke, ok?" Harry continued, earnestly.

Hermione looked amused, but Harry was really counting on her serious help. "Well, what do you do?" This was no laughing matter!

Hermione looked taken aback. "That's it? That's the whole situation? 'Suppose I'm a bloke who gets snogged by another bloke, what do I do then?'"

"Yeah," said Harry, dumbfounded. What else could she possibly need to know about his situation?

"This isn't about being gay, is it Harry?" her eyes flashed a warning. "Because I keep telling you, it's totally natural, and nothing to be ashamed of!"

"Yeah, I know, you've told me a thousand times. And I keep saying that I'm totally ok with it, every time. And anyway, I'm not gay, I'm _bisexual._"

She still didn't look totally convinced, however, so Harry added, "I just said it was a bloke because they're different than girls, you know, with this kind of stuff. And anyway, who said this was about me?"

"Okay, fair enough. Not that I actually do know, personally…" Hermione still looked a bit skeptical, but she inclined her head, granting his point.

"Great," said Harry. "So, what would you do?" He waited with bated breath for the words of wisdom to fall from her lips.

Hermione rolled her eyes again. "I can't go on just that information, Harry; don't be ridiculous. Do you – I mean do_ I _– fancy this other bloke?"

Harry considered. At last he said, "You've never thought of him in that way before," which, translated to Harry's situation, meant 'you've hated his guts as long as you've known him.'

"Hmmm," said Hermione, sorting this piece of information away for later use. "Well, did I enjoy kissing him?"

Harry hastily avoided having to think about the answer to that one, and instead took her question in the more literal sense.

"Say, you were so taken by surprise when he did it, that you, um, didn't really kiss back." Or, that you punched him in the face. Which certainly wasn't kissing back, whatever else it was.

"Okay…." the amused look had returned to Hermione's face. "And that's all that happened? I didn't see him at meals, or anything, supposedly?"

Harry thought she was taking this whole hypothetical situation thing way too far – how much other information did she need, honestly? But he went along with her anyway; it was her business if she felt like pretending all that other stuff mattered.

"So say you see him in class and stuff, and he keeps smiling at you for no good reason," Harry admitted. "Even though you don't smile back or anything; he just does it totally on his own, like." Or even though you're practicing your Glare From Hell on him.

Hermione grinned. "Ooo, should I be supposing that this bloke has a nice smile?"

"How would I know??" exclaimed Harry, on edge. "This is a hypothetical situation, isn't it? I don't care what you imagine his smile being like!"

Not nice, that was for sure…what _did_ you call it when something made you catch your breath out of surprise every time you saw it – out of surprise that it was _there_, first of all, and then that it was directed at_ you_, of all people? 'Breathtaking?' _Argh, no!_ Harry shuddered internally – this was why it was almost always a bad idea to analyze one's feelings. Better to leave well enough alone, and not try to understand things after they had already happened.

Hermione raised one eyebrow, as if to ask what else Harry was keeping from her about her supposed relations with the other bloke. Harry gave in. He hadn't really planned on sharing _everything_, but if it would help her make a better decision…

"Well, say you see him a few days later, and ask him why he went and snogged you in the first place, and he says he thought you said you wanted him to do it all along, and that otherwise he never would have done anything." _And then gets all up in your personal space with his secretly gold-flecked gray eyes, and his warm breath touching your skin when he talks, and his lean body just a hair's breadth away …_

Hermione looked like she was trying to keep herself from laughing. Harry blushed and fervently hoped that none of his private monolog had accidentally become public. Why on earth was he remembering those things anyway? It had to be because this had been a stressful day…yeah, that usually explained everything.

"Well," said Hermione, deciding that she had heard all the details Harry was prepared to share, "I would say that this other bloke seems like a pretty good catch – nice, cheerful, gentlemanly, and clearly interested…" Hermione smiled dreamily and her gaze became far away.

Harry couldn't believe his ears. "_What _did you say?!"

"I said he seems like a pretty good catch –"

"Yeah, yeah, I got it the first time," Harry said, dazed, not wanting to hear the litany of Malfoy's supposed good traits for a second time. He gulped and went in for the big question, hoping she wouldn't answer it as he feared she would. "Yeah, but, what would you _do_?"

Hermione's eyes got that faraway look again. "Well, first of all, I'd start thinking of him 'that way' right away; I don't see how I can't have already started, to tell you the truth, if he's doing all this. And the next time I saw him, I'd go over and apologize for being so slow on the uptake, blame it on the fact that his advances were so unexpected that it took me a while to get used to the idea, and then snog the living daylights out of him." She finished with a satisfied nod in Harry's direction, as though to say _and that's what I think about that! _ Then, as though it was an afterthought, she added sagely, "It might turn out to be nothing more than a physical attraction, but it's definitely worth giving him a chance at any rate. You never know until you try!"

"Um, well, thanks, Hermione…" This was not the kind of advice Harry had been looking for; it helped him not the slightest bit in this situation. At least he had lost nothing by asking. Well, no - there was the small detail that now Hermione knew most of the particulars of his situation with Malfoy, even if she still didn't know who it was.

He had already tried and failed to carry out Ron's plan; and Hermione's so-called plan was just untenable - there was no way he was giving that a try. There was no one else he could really ask, who would give advice Harry even remotely wanted to hear - or who would want to listen to his problems in the first place. Having exhausted all his potential sources for advice, he had no where else to turn but himself, now. He would work some solution out...sometime.

Harry snapped out of his reassessment of the situation when he realized that Hermione was talking again.

"And now are we done supposing? Because all this has made me start wishing I had someone who was interested in me like that, and since I clearly don't, I'd rather not dwell on it."

She cocked her head to the side. "Although if this bloke happens to lose interest in you, for whatever reason, please do point him in my direction." She smirked mischievously at Harry.

"I never said it was me!" said Harry, indignant. "How do you know that I'm not talking about a friend, or out of purely academic interest, or something?"

"Oh, of course, simple slip of the tongue," said Hermione, in tones dripping with insincerity.

"Well, thanks anyway; I think I'll just go up to bed now…" Harry gathered up his things, and sidled toward the stairs to his dorm, hoping to escape any other disturbing suggestions from his friend.

"Good night, Harry!" called Hermione after him, and then added, in tones of highest irony, "_Sweet dreams!_"

Damn that girl! She could obviously tell that the situation was something that bothered Harry, and instead of helping him forget it like any true friend would, she had gone straight for the jugular. _Sweet dreams_, indeed. Even if he had had a chance of getting his mind of Malfoy before, now he wasn't going to be able to think about anything else. He would probably end up having worse dreams than last night.

With a heavy sigh, he arranged his yet-uncompleted homework in a pile on his bedside table, and gave in to the idea of another disturbing, sleepless night.

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Harry woke up very early that morning. He had been dreaming, but this one had had nothing at all to do with Quidditch. The last thing he remembered was the sensation of being pinned to the ground under Malfoy, who was kissing him with an agonizing slowness. Dreams weren't supposed to feel this real, were they? He could feel the weight of Malfoy's body on top of his, and his hair tickling Harry's forehead, and the softness of his lips…

Just as Harry felt a tongue against brush his lips, the dream had ended. _Damn! Just when it was getting to the good part! _ Then Harry realized that that meant he had been enjoying the dream, which was not acceptable. No, it was good that it had ended where it did, before things got any worse...

Or was it? Harry flipped over restlessly in his bed, with the futile hope that staring at the opposite set of bed curtains would help him gain a clearer perspective. How could it be wrong to let oneself enjoy a dream? After all, the whole point of the thing was that it was purely imaginary, right? So that meant that nothing in the dream was real in any way – not his feelings, not Malfoy, not the sensations – wait, maybe he could grant that the sensations had _some_ bearing on waking life. That part had been pretty good.

Harry considered this new revelation carefully. So if dream-Malfoy had nothing at all to do with real Malfoy, then it didn't matter if he ended up snogging Malfoy in his dreams, nor did it matter how much he enjoyed it. Dream-Malfoy was nothing more than a figment of his imagination, and could just as easily have looked like someone else entirely. It was purely coincidental that his dreams had chosen to show him Malfoy.

And his feelings toward dream-Malfoy obviously had nothing to do with his feelings toward Malfoy in real life. Obviously. He would never even think about kissing Malfoy in real life; the very idea was disgusting. Why? Well, it didn't matter why…he just wouldn't think about it, and he would ignore real-life Malfoy from now on, and everything would be fine.

Thus comforted, he rolled over again and fell back to sleep, hoping to catch another hour or two of sleep before he had to wake up for breakfast. And he wouldn't mind if he happened to start dreaming again...after all, he had plenty of time; it was still _very_ early.

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	5. In the Library, Of All Places

A/N: So tomorrow it's going to snow, and I'll probably be made to wake up early to help my parents shovel, and by the time it gets around to the afternoon, I'll probably feel way more like going to sleep than updating this. So I'm doing it now, because after tomorrow it'll be new year's day, and I'll be dragged around to innumerable family functions all day, and won't have time to update. Also, it's the day before I'm leaving to go back to school, so I'll be doing all sorts of packing-y things all day. And then I'll actually be going back to school, so I definitely won't have time on wednesday. None of which you really care about, because I'm updating it right now, and now the story's complete and there shall be no more updates to worry about. So why am I saying all this anyway? I dunno, blame it on being overtired and having had a stressful day; that usually covers everything.

Enjoy the chapter, and DON'T FORGET TO REVIEW!! Don't think I can't see you, all you people who added this to your alerts list but never never wrote one single review. I mean, come on, you must have_ some _opinion. And the story's officially over now so this is your last chance! (!!!!!!!)

5. In the Library, of All Places 

Harry needed a cold shower when he woke up the next day, and the day after that too. All this early rising was doing nothing for Harry's mood, or for his ability to remain conscious during History of Magic, but it wasn't as though he had a choice in the matter. If the dreams had been about anyone else, he would have just had a quick wank and gone back to sleep, but he just could not let himself do that about Malfoy. He could let himself enjoy the dream itself, fine, but once he woke up…that was a different story. Hence, the cold showers.

The other part of the plan – to ignore Malfoy completely – was going much better, Harry thought as he toweled off from his latest early-morning ordeal of ice. That was mainly due to the fact that the past two days had been the weekend, and Harry had spent every second possible in the Gryffindor common room, and that he had managed to avoid seeing him at meals by going to the Great Hall at odd times when it was mostly empty. Classes weren't a problem as long as he avoided look beyond the confines of his desk from the moment he sat down until the moment class was over, and besides, he didn't have that many with the Slytherins anyway.

When he got out of the showers, none of his dorm mates had woken up yet, not even Ron, who had returned from the hospital wing at last, to Hermione's relief and his own great disappointment. Harry quickly dressed, trying not to wake any of them (they might start getting suspicious if they knew how often he got up this early), and then went down to the Great Hall for an early breakfast.

Unfortunately for Harry, a certain blond Slytherin was one of the few students in the hall at this hour, and he didn't have any of his followers around him to distract him from noticing Harry's entrance. He watched Harry with that lazy, knowing expression, as he walked over to the Gryffindor table, and kept watching all throughout breakfast – not that Harry was looking. He was pouring all his attention into his breakfast, and had _no_ way of knowing what Malfoy was doing. Not even when he licked egg yolk off his fingers in a way that was surely not allowed in public, all the time with his eyes locked on Harry and with that little half-smile on his face.

Harry dropped his gaze forcibly and began a studious examination of the contents of his own plate. No, he had _not_ just been watching Malfoy, had not just seen the obscene way in which he used his mouth…

Harry wished desperately that he had chosen to sit on the opposite side of the table, or that he had a newspaper with him, or something, so he could hide from that cool gaze. Even with his head down, he could still feel it boring into him…he started in on his last piece of toast, determined not to let Malfoy know how much he was getting to him. Malfoy, damn him, seemed in no hurry to finish his breakfast and leave the hall, even though he had been there since before Harry had arrived. Harry poured himself another glass of pumpkin juice and refused to let himself look up to check if Malfoy had finished yet.

Checking turned out to be unnecessary, though, because Malfoy appeared to have finished his breakfast at last, and was taking a detour around the Gryffindor table on his way out of the Great Hall. Harry saw him coming out of the corner of his eye, and hoped fervently that he would not stop and say anything – it could be a coincidence that his path would take him right behind Harry; maybe he just felt like taking the long way out. The really, really, unnecessarily long way.

"Hi, Harry," said Malfoy, sliding into spot next to Harry on the bench. A second-year girl eating oatmeal further down the table fell off her seat with a squeak. Harry wondered where Malfoy had gotten the idea that he could call him by his first name. Well, two could play the game.

"Hello, _Draco_," Harry replied, with a note of challenge in his voice. _See how he likes it now…_

A positively sunny smile broke out on Dra – no, Malfoy's face, and Harry decided he had to find a new tactic, fast. "What did you come over here for, anyway?" he asked, scowling. "You shouldn't feel the need to go out of your way to bother me, Malfoy." _As if you hadn't bothered me enough already from across the room…_

"Oh, just to say hi," Malfoy said, getting up again. "See you later, Harry," and then he reached out and brushed Harry's cheek the same way he had done on the way back from Care of Magical Creatures, a few days ago.

Draco Malfoy, just saying hi? That was the strangest thing that Harry had ever had the opportunity to witness. Harry watched as Malfoy left the hall without looking back, and his hand rose to his face to hold the place where Malfoy had touched it. He quickly realized what he was doing, however, and tried to pretend that he had been going to scratch an itch all along, but luckily no one had been looking.

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Harry went to his classes that day without event – none of his classes on Tuesdays were held with Slytherin, luckily – and then went to meet up with Hermione in the library after dinner. She was convinced that he seriously risked failing out of all his classes if he didn't study more, so he had let her persuade him to spend an extra study session together in the library once a week. It hadn't seemed a totally bad idea at the time, and anyway, studying with Hermione usually meant that she did a substantial amount of the work herself, unless she was in a really bad mood.

She had only been in that bad of a mood twice this semester, so Harry felt that he was getting the good end of the bargain. She seemed to be in a good mood today, too, judging by the lightness of her step as she bustled up to meet him by the doors, and the speed at which she chatted about her newest Arithmancy project as she led them through the stacks in search of an empty table.

They chose a table toward the back of the library, away from the main study area where everyone else was, because Hermione said she needed the quiet to think properly. Harry just felt walled in by the stacks and stacks of books surrounding them, and wished they could have chosen somewhere less secluded.

Hermione, still expounding on her Arithmancy project a mile a minute, pulled a chair around so that it was on the same side of the table as Harry's, and then sat down and began pulling out seemingly infinite mountains of books from her bag and laying them out on the table in front of them. Harry looked at the two textbooks and one blank scroll that _he_ had seen fit to bring, and rolled his eyes. This was going to be a long night. Hermione had hardly finished unpacking all her books when she realized she was missing one that she had meant to check out yesterday, and she bustled off to find it again, with apologies to Harry for the delay.

He really didn't mind, though, and occupied himself by doodling on the end of his scroll. He was just completing a cartoon of Ron trying – and failing – to punch Draco Malfoy in the face with his artificially floppy hand, when he heard someone approaching from out of the stacks. Assuming it was Hermione, he just bent closer to his task in order to add an extra-pointy chin to the figure of Malfoy in each panel.

"Hi, Harry."

Oh no. That was _not_ Hermione. Malfoy slid into the seat next to Harry, and Harry was instantly aware of just how close together the two chairs were. They legs of the chairs were touching, and he could have leaned over and rested his head on Malfoy's shoulder, if he had any such inclination.

Malfoy leaned back casually in his chair. "So what're you doing here?" He gestured to the impressive spread of books, and Harry had to stop himself from admiring the graceful sweep of that hand, with its long fingers…

"Oh, just studying with Hermione. She thinks it's important for me not to fail all my classes, so…" Why had he just said that? Surely he should be telling Malfoy to sod off right now, not sitting here making small talk with him.

"You can't really be failing _all_ your classes," Malfoy said with a smile than was only partly sarcastic.

Harry found himself smiling back despite himself. It was almost impossible not to, when the force of that smile was felt at such close range.

"Well, no, I'm not, but Hermione just gets kind of paranoid about these things. It's easier to just follow along than to fight her on it."

"Yeah, I know the type," Malfoy said, companionably. "Pansy can get like that about some things, but sometimes you just have to ignore them and get your own way, right?" Harry felt Malfoy's leg fall against his own under the table, and his eyes shot up to meet Malfoy's. He was still talking though, seemingly oblivious to the actions of his limbs, so maybe it was just an accident? Harry didn't move his leg away, though; telling himself it was because he didn't want to draw unnecessary attention to the situation.

"Yeah," replied Harry vaguely, not really believing that he was having a civil conversation with Malfoy, of all people.

"So, Harry – you don't mind if I call you Harry, do you? I mean, I assume you would have stopped me by now if you did."

"Um," said Harry, not knowing quite how to reply to this. Where was Hermione? Why didn't she come and demand her seat back, and save Harry before this got any worse? He could still feel Malfoy's leg pressed against his, and he was beginning to doubt his earlier assessment about it being accidental. Harry turned in his seat to see if he could spot her coming, but no luck.

When he turned back, Malfoy's eyes were fixed on his neck. "What?" said Harry, trying to twist around to see for himself. "Do I have something…?"

"Hold on," said Malfoy, acting as though he hadn't heard him. "You've got something on your collar…" And he leaned out of his chair and rested his arm on Harry's shoulder, tugging at the offending collar to expose it. His head was bent close to his task, and Harry could feel his breath tickling the back of his neck.

Malfoy's position also afforded Harry a tantalizing view of his abs where his shirt had begun to pull out from his waistband, which Harry tried to avoid seeing by looking in every direction but forward. But then Malfoy told him to "stop moving his head around like that, did he want his collar fixed or not?", so Harry stopped.

Harry felt Malfoy let go of his collar, but instead of going away, his hand fell to cup the back of Harry's neck. Malfoy was now looking Harry straight in the eye, and Harry could again make out those little flecks of color in Malfoy's otherwise gray eyes that had occupied such a large portion of his dreams. They were so pretty…

"This is something I've wanted to do for a long time," Malfoy murmured in a low voice, as his fingers crept up the back of Harry's neck to tangle in his hair.

"What, get something off my collar?" Harry asked stupidly.

"No, this," Malfoy breathed, and he tilted Harry's head forward and pressed his lips against Harry's own. It was not a vigorous, urgent kiss like the one in the Chinese Room had been; in fact it seemed almost tentative. Harry had half moved to push Malfoy off him when he saw what he was about to do, but – oh bugger it, that wasn't what he wanted. Maybe it was the fault of too many interrupted dreams, and too many hormones, and too much innuendo from Hermione, but all thoughts of punching Malfoy in the face and running from the door were chased out of Harry's head at that first contact of lips.

Malfoy started to pull away, but Harry was having none of it – he had made his decision, and there was no way he was going to be cheated out of what he wanted at this point. Harry followed Malfoy's retreating mouth with his own, and the look on Malfoy's face was one of smug appreciation. _The git's done this before,_ was Harry's fleeting thought.

When their lips met for the second time, it was tentative no longer. Malfoy attacked his mouth hungrily, and Harry responded with equal passion, almost clumsy in his eagerness. When he did feel a tongue pushing against his lips, he opened them unhesitatingly. This was just as good, no, better, than he could have ever imagined, and_ it was impossible to wake up this time!_

Seeing that his attentions were well-received on the other end, Malfoy wasted no more time testing the waters. He crawled from his chair to Harry's without breaking the kiss, and then, from his new position straddling Harry's lap, he went to work on Harry's shirt. As soon as he got the top few buttons undone, he slid his hands under the fabric and began exploring Harry's muscular shoulders and chest. Harry continued to kiss back enthusiastically, and was extraordinarily glad that he had chosen not to wear an undershirt today.

Draco, seemingly becoming impatient after a few moments of this limited contact, made quick work of the rest of Harry's shirt buttons, and pushed the material off Harry's shoulders. He detached his mouth from Harry's just long enough to bring it to rest again on Harry's throat, moving on after a moment to eagerly explore the freshly-exposed skin with lips and tongue. Harry's head dropped back, and he let out a ragged breath. It took such a simple touch to reduce him to this state – how did the Slytherin _do_ that?

Harry noticed through his haze of pleasure that Draco's ministrations were following a general downward pattern, and no sooner had he made note of this fact, then he felt cool fingers fumbling with his belt buckle. Then Harry heard a loud throat-clearing from right behind him, and Draco's head shot up from the vicinity of Harry's belly button with an impressive rapidity. Harry remarked that the delightfully tousled and bright-eyed look he now wore was quite a good look on him indeed…

"Granger," Draco said, glaring over Harry's shoulder at the intruder. To Harry's surprise, he didn't move to get off, but scooted further up Harry's lap and wrapped his arms possessively around him.

"Honestly, why don't you two get a room?" Harry could _hear_ Hermione rolling her eyes. She moved the other, vacated, chair as far away from the pair of them as she could, picking off Harry's tie from where it had landed on her books with two fingers. Harry thought he could hear her muttering something like, "Honestly, _boys_! In the_library_, of all places!" and she was sighing a lot, very heavily, as she shuffled around her papers.

Harry glanced apologetically at Draco, who showed no sign of wanting to let go. "I think we'd better…"

But Draco apparently had his own agenda. "Fine, Granger, we _will_ get a room, seeing as this location has become so_ inhospitable _all of a sudden. Come on, Harry." He got off Harry's lap gracefully and held out an imperious hand for Harry to take. Harry quickly threw his things into his bag and shrugged his shirt back onto his shoulders, and grabbed Draco's hand.

"Bye, Hermione," he called over his shoulder, as Draco pulled him out of the library at a pace just on this side of dignified. He thought he heard her mutter something about "hormone-crazed teenage boys who would rather shag in public than study for class," but her face was mysteriously redder than a simple exasperation over poor study habits could warrant. Harry would have worried about exactly how much she had seen – she hadn't actually seemed surprised to see them like that – but he was being dragged along behind Draco too fast to really care.

He didn't even care when they strode through the busier common study area and caused a commotion of historical proportions. (Well, Draco strode; Harry had to jog every few steps to keep up.) Heads turned at their entrance and gasps were heard over their debauched appearance. The library erupted into a dull roar of whispered conversations and exclamations in their wake as they exited through the double doors, but Harry hardly even noticed.

He was too busy contemplating more important things, such as, _Where was Draco taking him?_ and, _Why had he never noticed how nice Draco's ass looked when he walked fast like that?_ and, _Would now be an opportune time to push Draco against the wall and snog him senseless, as Hermione had so sensibly suggested?_ _Or should he wait till they got further down the hall, perhaps?_

fin

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A/N: Actually, it isn't quite the end, because I wrote an epilogue because I hate loose ends. With a burning, firey passion. Well, perhaps not, but I have fun wrapping them up anyway. It's the kind of thing you'd really only care about reading right after you read the chapter, so I thoughtfully put it up now, instead of waiting for tomorrow. Today shall be known as the day of many updates?


	6. Epilogue

A/N: A big thank you to all the people who took the time to review this before it was all the way done:D You guys really rock, and are in all ways awesome!! And now for the...

overly long, irrelevant, and incongruous

Epilogue:

Harry ended up deciding that it was an opportune time to push Draco against the wall and snog him senseless a total of 17 times before they reached their destination. (This is not counting the number of times that Draco seemed to have reached the same conclusion.) The place Draco had been taking Harry in such a hurry turned out to be Draco's Secret Slytherin Love Nest, which you should assume was well-appointed in every way. Once there (though possibly somewhat before? I mean, they were impatient and hormonally-charged), both of them wasted no time in getting all the way naked, and had sex like bunnies until dawn, even though it had only been like 7:00 pm when they left the library. They both had gorgeous bodies and were muscular and tan and all that, so you should just assume the sex was awesome and very very hot. (Although you should not assume either of them had chest hair; that is just nasty and not attractive. And I get to say so because I'm the author.)

Hermione had actually been watching them from behind a bookshelf for the majority of the time that they were snogging in the library, but had only made her presence known when she felt they were in danger of breaking more than one school rules. She really wished they had _both_ managed to get shirtless before then, but then you take what you can get. She eventually gave up trying to change Ron into the perfect man for her, and they all got along much better after that (as friends! Much fewer arguments, etc.) She eventually found, to her never-ending delight, a man in Wizard University who courted her in pretty much the exact same way Draco had done Harry, although she didn't take nearly as long to figure things out and get to the 'push him against the wall and snog him senseless' stage as Harry had.

Snape disowned Draco as a godson when he realized that he had unwittingly helped him get together with Harry Potter. Soon after, he found to his horror that, in blatant disregard of his disownment decision, Narcissa still insisted on sending him angry letters whenever he mistreated Draco even the slightest bit. Or Harry, for that matter – she took her son's welfare very seriously, and Draco seemed to have convinced her that his boyfriend's mental health was crucial to his own. As a result, Snape temporarily resigned from his post at Hogwarts, and only came back after both Harry and Draco had long since left. No one knows what he did while he was away. (Probably something illegal. Or too boring to bother looking into. Or something totally nasty that some fanfic author somewhere has doubtless already dreamed up. Or something.)

Ron eventually got over being angry at Harry for "shagging the enemy," as he put it, and their friendship didn't suffer for it in the end. He still refused to be in the same room as Draco, however, and never quite seemed to believe Harry when he said that their plan to beat Malfoy into a pulp was definitely off. He went on to become Keeper for the Chudley Cannons, but was ironically injured the day before he was to be traded to a better team. After he failed to recover fully from this injury, (which both Harry and Hermione thought was something that should have happened years ago, given his attitude toward bludgers and the laws of probability), he took a job in the Magical Games and Sports department, seemingly unable to conceive of a career that did not involve Quidditch on some major level.

Harry and Draco were much more careful after that night, and while no one ever caught them doing anything in public again, their half-dressed flight from the library became the stuff of Hogwarts legend. They never could find the Chinese Room again, although they tried on several occasions, and Harry maintained that only Snape knew its location, and that he routinely used it to get rid of students he didn't like, by boring them to death. After they left Hogwarts, Harry and Draco lived happily together forever and ever, with only the occasional fight over dress robes or the obligatory visit to Malfoy Manor or the Burrow to ruin their conjugal bliss. For some reason, their respective families could never fathom how on earth the two of them got along as well as they did. Honestly, neither could Harry, when he thought about it. Which is why it was always better_ not _to think about one's feelings.

FOR REAL THE END THIS TIME YAY.

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So now you know everything. And just so you know, I _always_ appreciate getting reviews. Even from stories that I wrote months and months ago. I mean, I'm just saying...And yes, it _was_ a weird story, so you can feel free to say whatever you really thought of it!


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